THIS book, by the Marquis de Nadaillac, edited in the translation by W. H. Dall, is to be received as the standard authority upon the subject of the native American people, and as covering briefly the whole ground of what is known of them. It is the only work of at all equal extent that covers this ground in the spirit of scientific ethnology. It will seem, perhaps, rather tame to those who have fed their imaginations on the picturesque myths of romancers, as to the origin and civilizations of the prehistoric peoples of this continent; but for those who have not become too enamored of Atlantis, and Norembega, and Cibola, it will seem a great satisfaction to have a sober and trust worthy statement of the probable truth. Real science is always a little tame at first acquaintance to those who have been infected by the pseudo-science that the sensational lecturer, book-writer, or paragraphist builds into current popular conceptions.

Prehistoric America, we understand, is to be considered on the whole as much Dr. Dall's work as De Nadaillac's, although Dr. Dall's name appears only as editor; and he is the one responsible for the main conclu. sions reached. Dr. Dall is probably even more satisfactory to American readers than the French scholar as authority on the subject, and his share in the work is matter of congratulation.

up.

The subject is very systematically divided

The first chapter, "Man and the Mastodon," gives quite exhaustively all that is known of man's existence on this continent contemporaneously with the mastodon-that is, in quaternary times. The evidences of this are conclusive, and not a few. Positive conclusions as to the geographical distribution of man in America at this early period are hindered by the incompleteness of pres

1 Prehistoric America. By the Marquis de Nadaillac, Translated by N. D'Anvers. Edited by W. H. Dall,

New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1884.

ent knowledge of the geology of the continent, and also by the incomplete scientific equipment of many of the explorers. But it seems highly probable that as early as the glacial period, and in the time of the mastodon and glyptodon, rude nomads were scattered over all the area of "Central America" (by which term North America from the northern limits of the United States to the Isthmus seems to be meant) and of South America. That man had by this period become so widely distributed over the two continents, indicates that his first arrival upon them must have been much earlier. In California, where human remains associated with mastodon and tapir bones, and of undoubtedly pre-glacial date, have been frequently found and properly verified, the indications of a still greater antiquity exist, as all the world knows through the Calaveras skull discussion. Indications, we say, not evidences; but after a careful reading of the comments on this point, we cannot but conclude that De Nadaillac, and still more Dr. Dall, incline to believe the skull actually tertiary, as Whitney believes it. Strange as it may seem, after all these years, the newspaper story that Professor Whitney was hoaxed in the matter of this skull is still believed by many-is, in fact, the popular faith in press, and pulpit, and conversation. This may excuse our dwelling somewhat on the point, and repeating what to some of our readers is an old story.

It was in 1866 that the skull was discovered. It was by no means the only indication of human life in the same geological deposit, but it was far the most important. In 1872, Professor Whitney, in answer to letters, reiterated his assured belief that the skull and many other human relics were tertiary, but went on eight years thereafter completing his study of his discoveries, and preparing for publication, without paying the smallest attention to the newspaper stories of a hoax, which be

gan to be numerous. There are miners from Calaveras today, who assert in detailed narrative their personal knowledge of the fraudulent origin of the skull; and Harte's witty poem has doubtless given a long tenure of life to this belief. It is, however, to be regarded as a curious instance of the growth of a myth; for all the characteristics of the skull, including those revealed by chemical analysis, testify to its being very ancient, and the only difference of opinion among those who have examined the evidence seems to be, how ancient. De Nadaillac says of it: "The conclusions to be arrived at seem to us simple. Without doubt, man lived in California-and Whitney's narrative is one more proof added to those already quoted-during the time when the volcanoes of the Sierra Nevada were in full action, before the great extension of the glaciers: at a period when the flora and the fauna were totally different from those of today. But Whitney him self admits that if the eruption of the great mass of volcanic matter began toward the pliocene period, it certainly lasted throughout the whole of the post-pliocene period." Professor March is quoted as follows: "The evidence, as it stands today, although not conclusive, seems to place the appearance of man in this country in the pliocene; and the best proof of this has been found on the Pacific Coast." Dr. Dall says: "No reasonable person who has impartially reviewed the evidence brought together by Whitney, and who saw, as we did, the Calaveras skull in its original condition, can doubt that it was found, as alleged by the discoverers, in the auriferous gravels below the lava. The only question to which some uncertainty still attaches itself among geologists is that of the true age of these gravels in geological time; and whether all the extinct species of which remains are found in them were contemporaneous with the deposition of the gravels, and with the then undoubted presence of man."

Man had, then, in all probability, spread over the whole of "Central" and South America before the disappearance of the mastodon, and may have appeared still ear

He was then a

lier upon the Pacific Coast. nomad hunter, with no indication whatever of any tribal organization, burial, or other religious rites. The next chapter takes up the kitchen-middens and caves, and reviews the abundant testimony of the shell-heaps and cave-dwellings to the existence, within recent geological times, but at a very ancient period, of tribes of men, living under some organization, hunting and fishing, and possessed of some crude arts and burial rites. Among some of the tribes of this date, the evidences of cannibalism are unmistakable. Some of the cave men seem to have been also agricultural, and in several ways more advanced and of later period than the men of the shell-mounds, and show close resemblances to the Mound-Builders. It would be erroneous to regard this stage of cultivation as one which the peoples of America reached and then passed from into the higher ones, as there seems to be no period, even to the present time, at which tribes have not been living in about the same way. The Apaches, the Californian "Diggers," and others would seem to have the same mode of life as that of the tribes described by the Spanish conquerors, and these as the ancient tribes of the shell-heaps. The only statement possible of their date seems to be that this period of stone age nomad tribes began long before the time of the Mound-Builders and other skilled races, and continued alongside of them, and even until the present day.

One of the most important portions of the book is that which-in the next two chap ters-reviews the remains of the MoundBuilders. The many theories as to the purpose of the mounds and the mysterious character of their builders, find little favor. "They were neither more nor less than the immediate predecessors in blood and culture of the Indians . . . who inhabited the region of the mounds at the time of their discovery by civilized man." "The objects found in them [the mounds] . . . might have been taken from the inmost recesses of a mound, or picked up on the surface among the debris of a recent Indian village, and the most

...

experienced archæologist could not decide which was their origin." Lucien Carr, Haven, Schoolcraft, Brinton, General Lewis Cass, Gallatin, C. C. Jones, Judge M. F. Force, and Lapham, all agree positively with this conclusion, and Squier partially admits it. "There is nothing in the mounds beyond the power of such people as inhabited the region when discovered; . . . those people are known to have constructed many of the mounds now or recently existing; and there is no evidence that any other or different people had any hand in the construction of those mounds in regard to which direct historical evidence is wanting." This, how ever, is not to be taken as disparaging these remarkable works; rather as attributing to the Indians of the northern and central United States a higher capacity than we, with the arrogance of a conquering race, have been accustomed to admit. The remarkable drawings and carvings, the ingenious copper-mining, the system of canals, seventy miles long, connecting the Mississippi with several lakes in Missouri, for canoe navigation (one of these canals fifty feet wide by twelve deep), show that we have not so much overrated the Mound-Builders as underrated the Indians. And that this has been largely sheer carelessness in finding out their real capacities, is evident from the testimony of the Indian schools to the genius for drawing and moulding, for figures and calculation, shown by the observant children from the better Indian tribes; from the lofty legends recovered from them by Leland and others; from the testimony of many military men who have been among them. We carelessly confuse the rude tribes spoken of in the preceding paragraph with the intelligent Iroquois, Natchez, Chippewas, Creeks, etc. It is also probably true that the struggle with their conquerors and the later effects of being conquered have checked and thrown back their culture the latest mounds, according to Squier, were built by the Iroquois in western New York just before the struggle with the whites, and this struggle doubtless absorbed and exhausted all their energies, and caused great retrogression in peaceful

arts. Some of the ablest of these tribes have been actually exterminated. Moreover, their potteries and weavings and tools and baskets have been supplanted by the cheaper and handier ones to be purchased from the whites for furs and fish and berries, and after three hundred years of this sort of trade their native arts have inevitably been almost forgotten. A people crushed by one of the most overwhelming and destructive conquests that ever befell, it is more surprising that, after three hundred years, they should retain so much of their old power, than that they should have lost a great deal. There is, however, no doubt that there has been much moving about of tribes, probably driven out by others; and that, recent as are the latest Iroquois mounds, the whole period of mound-building extended over many centuries, and dated back to a time that can only be guessed at. Some of the guesses carry the beginning back before the Christian era; more careful ones to the first Christian centuries, the most flourishing period falling about the seventh century.

The next two chapters treat of the Cliffdwellers and Pueblos, who are both considered the same people, the cliff dwellings being retreats in time of danger, prepared for themselves by the peaceful inhabitants of the plain. Arizona and New Mexico were then fertile countries, densely settled; and the drying up of waters (due perhaps to reckless cutting of forests by these very people) may have had more to do than war with their reduction to the dozen poor pueblos which now represent this once great people. This race has suffered little from the whites, and consequently retains its ancient traits very closely. Marvelous as are the ruins of the pueblo country, they give no comfort to those who are disposed to believe the legends of cities and palaces, but are evidences merely of a prosperous and dense population of exactly the same sort that now lingers in the Zuñi and other pueblos.

The civilizations of Mexico, Central America, and Yucatan occupy the next division, and those of Peru and other South American districts, the last. We must not